"A Birder's Guide to Everything" is an unassuming little charmer about a quartet of teenaged ornithologists who go in pursuit of a duck long believed to be extinct by experts in such matters. But, as the title itself suggests, "birding" is about a whole lot more than just seeking out and categorizing rare birds; it's about friendship, camaraderie, first love, learning to let go and growing up.
Kodi Smit-McPhee plays David Portnoy, a high school boy who's having trouble coming to terms with the death of his beloved mother a year-and- a-half ago, a renowned ornithologist herself who instilled an intense love for birds in her son that he carries with him to this very day. His grieving process is not being helped by the fact that his father (James Le Gros) is slated to marry the nurse (Daniela Lavender) who took care of his mother in her dying days. David rebels in the only way a non-troublemaking, bird-obsessed boy really can - by piling into a "borrowed" car with his equally bird-obsessed buddies and going off through the woods of Upstate New York to prove the world wrong about that aforementioned duck.
Written by Luke Matheny and Rob Meyer and directed by Meyer, "A Birder's Guide to Everything" is filled with humor, warmth, and winning performances by Alex Wolff and Michael Chen as David's lifelong pals, as well as Katie Chang as the initially skeptical but sufficiently open- minded fellow student who joins the boys in their quest. Ben Kingley also gets in on the fun as a professional ornithologist who worked with David's mother and has a few words of wisdom to impart to the mourning lad on the eve of his dad's nuptials.
Along with some dazzling scenery, "A Birder's Guide to Everything" manages to drive home a few basic truths - like it really is okay to march to the beat of your own drum - with its deceptively simple tale of a boy and his birds.
